The SELEX method (hereinafter termed SELEX), described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/536,428, filed Jun. 11, 1990, entitled Systematic Evolution of Ligands By Exponential Enrichment, now abandoned, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/714,131, filed Jun. 10, 1991, entitled Nucleic Acid Ligands, issued as U.S. Pat. No. 5,475,096 and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/931,473, filed August 17, 1992, entitled Method for Identifying Nucleic Acid Ligands, issued as U.S. Pat. No. 5,270,163, all of which are herein specifically incorporated by reference (referred to herein as the SELEX Patent Applications), provides a class of products which are nucleic acid molecules, each having a unique sequence, each of which has the property of binding specifically to a desired target compound or molecule. Each nucleic acid molecule is a specific ligand of a given target compound or molecule. SELEX is based on the unique insight that nucleic acids have sufficient capacity for forming a variety of two- and three-dimensional structures and sufficient chemical versatility available within their monomers to act as ligands (form specific binding pairs) with virtually any chemical compound, whether monomeric or polymeric. Molecules of any size can serve as targets.
The SELEX method involves selection from a mixture of candidates and step-wise iterations of structural improvement, using the same general selection theme, to achieve virtually any desired criterion of binding affinity and selectivity. Starting from a mixture of nucleic acids, preferably comprising a segment of randomized sequence, the method includes steps of contacting the mixture with the target under conditions favorable for binding, partitioning unbound nucleic acids from those nucleic acids which have bound to target molecules, dissociating the nucleic acid-target pairs, amplifying the nucleic acids dissociated from the nucleic acid-target pairs to yield a ligand-enriched mixture of nucleic acids, then reiterating the steps of binding, partitioning, dissociating and amplifying through as many cycles as desired.
While not bound by theory, SELEX is based on the inventors' insight that within a nucleic acid-mixture containing a large number of possible sequences and structures there is a wide range of binding affinities for a given target. A nucleic acid mixture comprising, for example a 20 nucleotide randomized segment can have 4.sup.20 candidate possibilities. Those which have the higher affinity constants for the target are most likely to bind to the target. After partitioning, dissociation and amplification, a second nucleic acid mixture is generated, enriched for the higher binding affinity candidates. Additional rounds of selection progressively favor the best ligands until the resulting nucleic acid mixture is predominantly composed of only one or a few sequences. These can then be cloned, sequenced and individually tested for binding affinity as pure ligands.
Cycles of selection, partition and amplification are repeated until a desired goal is achieved. In the most general case, selection/partition/amplification is continued until no significant improvement in binding strength is achieved on repetition of the cycle. The method may be used to sample as many as about 10.sup.18 different nucleic acid species. The nucleic acids of the test mixture preferably include a randomized sequence portion as well as conserved sequences necessary for efficient amplification. Nucleic acid sequence variants can be produced in a number of ways including synthesis of randomized nucleic acid sequences and size selection from randomly cleaved cellular nucleic acids. The variable sequence portion may contain fully or partially random sequence; it may also contain subportions of conserved sequence incorporated with randomized sequence. Sequence variation in test nucleic acids can be introduced or increased by mutagenesis before or during the selection/partition/amplification iterations.
Photocrosslinking of nucleic acids to proteins has been achieved through incorporation of photoreactive functional groups in the nucleic acid. Photoreactive groups which have been incorporated into nucleic acids for the purpose of photocrosslinking the nucleic acid to an associated protein include 5-bromouracil, 4-thiouracil, 5-azidouracil, and 8-azidoadenine (see FIG. 1).
Bromouracil has been incorporated into both DNA and RNA by substitution of bromodeoxyuracil (BrdU) and bromouracil (BrU) for thymine and uracil, respectively. BrU-RNA has been prepared with 5-bromouridine triphosphate in place of uracil using T7 RNA polymerase and a DNA template, and both BrU-RNA and BrdU-DNA have been prepared with 5-bromouracil and 5-bromodeoxyuracil phosphoramidites, respectively, in standard nucleic acid synthesis (Talbot et al. (1990) Nucleic Acids Res. 18:3521). Some examples of the photocrosslinking of BrdU-substituted DNA to associated proteins are as follows: BrdU-substituted DNA to proteins in intact cells (Weintraub (1973) Cold Spring Harbor Symp. Quant. Biol. 38:247); BrdU-substituted lac operator DNA to lac repressor (Lin and Riggs (1974) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 71:947; Ogata and Gilbert (1977) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 74:4973; Barbier et al. (1984) Biochemistry 23:2933; Wick and Matthews (1991) J. Biol. Chem. 266:6106); BrdU-substituted DNA to EcoRI and EcoRV restriction endonucleases (Wolfes et al. (1986) Eur. J. Biochem. 159:267); Escherichia coli BrdU-substituted DNA to cyclic adenosine 3',5'-monophosphate receptor protein (Katouzian-Safadi et al. (1991) Photochem. Photobiol. 53:611); BrdU-substituted DNA oligonucleotide of human polyomavirus to proteins from human fetal brain extract (Khalili et al. (1988) EMBO J. 7:1205); a yeast BrdU-substituted DNA oligonucleotide to GCN4, a yeast transcriptional activator (Blatter et al. (1992) Nature 359:650); and a BrdU-substituted DNA oligonucleotide of Methanosarcina sp CHT155 to the chromosomal protein Mci (Katouzian-Safadi et al. (1991) Nucleic Acids Res. 19:4937). Photocrosslinking of BrU-substituted RNA to associated proteins has also been reported: BrU-substituted yeast precursor tRNA.sup.Phe to yeast tRNA ligase (Tanner et al. (1988) Biochemistry 27:8852) and a BrU-substituted hairpin RNA of the R17 bacteriophage genome to R17 coat protein (Gott et al. (1991) Biochemistry 30:6290).
4-Thiouracil-substituted RNA has been used to photocrosslink, especially, t-RNA's to various associated proteins (Favre (1990) in: Bioorganic Photochemistry, Volume 1: Photochemistry and the Nucleic Acids, H. Morrison (ed.), John Wiley & Sons: New York, pp. 379-425; Tanner et al. (1988) supra). 4-Thiouracil has been incorporated into RNA using 4-thiouridine triphosphate and T7 RNA polymerase or using nucleic acid synthesis with the appropriate phosphoramidite; it has also been incorporated directly into RNA by exchange of the amino group of cytosine for a thiol group with hydrogen sulfide. Yet another method of site specific incorporation of photoreactive groups into nucleic acids involves use of 4-thiouridylyl-(3'-5')-guanosine (Wyatt et al. (1992) Genes & Development 6:2542).
Examples of 5-azidouracil-substituted and 8-azidoadenine-substituted nucleic acid photocrosslinking to associated proteins are also known. Associated proteins that have been crosslinked include terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase (Evans et al. (1989) Biochemistry 28:713; Farrar et al. (1991) Biochemistry 30:3075); Xenorus TFIIIA, a zinc finger protein (Lee et al. (1991) J. Biol. Chem. 266:16478); and E. coli ribosomal proteins (Wower et al. (1988) Biochemistry 27:8114). 5-Azidouracil and 8-azidoadenine have been incorporated into DNA using DNA polymerase or terminal transferase. Proteins have also been photochemically labelled by exciting 8-azidoadenosine 3',5'-biphosphate bound to bovine pancreatic ribonuclease A (Wower et al. (1989) Biochemistry 28:1563) and 8-azidoadenosine 5'-triphosphate bound to ribulose-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (Salvucci and Haley (1990) Planta 181:287).
8-Bromo-2'-deoxyadenosine as a potential photoreactive group has been incorporated into DNA via the phosphoramidite (Liu and Verdine (1992) Tetrahedron Lett. 33:4265). The photochemical reactivity has yet to be investigated.
Photocrosslinking of 5-iodouracil-substituted nucleic acids to associated proteins has not been previously investigated, probably because the size of the iodo group has been thought to preclude specific binding of the nucleic acid to the protein of interest. However, 5-iodo-2'-deoxyuracil and 5-iodo-2'-deoxyuridine triphosphate have been shown to undergo photocoupling to thymidine kinase from E. coli (Chen and Prusoff (1977) Biochemistry 16:3310).
Mechanistic studies of the photochemical reactivity of the 5-bromouracil chromophore have been reported including studies with regard to photocrosslinking. Most importantly, BrU shows wavelength dependent photochemistry. Irradiation in the region of 310 nm populates an n,.pi.* singlet state which decays to ground state and intersystem crosses to the lowest energy triplet state (Dietz et al. (1987) J. Am. Chem. Soc. 109:1793), most likely the .pi.,.pi.* triplet (Rothman and Kearns (1967) Photochem. Photobiol. 6:775). The triplet state reacts with electron-rich amino acid residues via initial electron transfer followed by covalent bond formation. Photocrosslinking of triplet 5-bromouracil to the electron rich aromatic amino acid residues tyrosine, tryptophan and histidine (Ito et al. (1980) J. Am. Chem. Soc. 102:7535; Dietz and Koch (1987) Photochem. Photobiol. 46:971), and the disulfide bearing amino acid, cystine (Dietz and Koch (1989) Photochem. Photobiol. 49:121), has been demonstrated in model studies. Even the peptide linkage is a potential functional group for photocrosslinking to triplet BrU (Dietz et al. (1987) supra). Wavelengths somewhat shorter than 308 nm populate both the .pi.,.pi.* and .pi.,.pi.* singlet states. The .pi.,.pi.* singlet undergoes carbon-bromine bond homolysis as well as intersystem crossing to the triplet manifold (Dietz et al. (1987) supra); intersystem crossing may occur in part via internal conversion to the n,.pi.* singlet state. Carbon-bromine bond homolysis likely leads to nucleic acid strand breaks (Hutchinson and Kohnlein (1980) Prog. Subcell. Biol. 7:1; Shetlar (1980) Photochem. Photobiol. Rev. 5:105; Saito and Sugiyama (1990) in: Bioorganic Photochemistry, Volume 1: Photochemistry and the Nucleic Acids, H. Morrison, ed., John Wiley and Sons, New York, pp. 317-378). The wavelength dependent photochemistry is outlined in the Jablonski Diagram in FIG. 2 and the model photocrosslinking reactions are shown in FIG. 3.
The location of photocrosslinks from irradiation of some BrU-substituted nucleoprotein complexes have been investigated. In the lac repressor-BrdU-lac operator complex a crosslink to tyrosine-17 has been established (Allen et al. (1991) J. Biol. Chem. 266:6113). In the archaebacterial chromosomal protein MC1-BrdU-DNA complex a crosslink to tryptophan-74 has been implicated. In yeast BrdU-substituted DNA-GCN4 yeast transcriptional activator a crosslink to alanine-238 was reported (Blatter et al. (1992) supra). In this latter example the nucleoprotein complex was irradiated at 254 nm which populated initially the .pi.,.pi.* singlet state.
The results of some reactivity and mechanistic studies of 5-iodouracil, 5-iodo-2'-deoxyuracil, 5-iodo-2'-deoxyuracil-substituted DNA, and 5-iodo-2'-deoxycytosine-substituted DNA have been reported. 5-Iodouracil and 5-iodo-2'-deoxyuracil couple at the 5-position to allylsilanes upon irradiation in acetonitrile-water bearing excess silane with emission from a medium pressure mercury lamp filtered through Pyrex glass; the mechanism was proposed to proceed through initial carbon-iodine bond homolysis followed by radical addition to the .pi.-bond of the allylsilane (Saito et al. (1986) J. Org. Chem. 51:5148).
Aerobic and anaerobic photo-deiodination of 5-iodo-2'-deoxyuracil-substituted DNA has been studied as a function of excitation wavelength; the intrinsic quantum yield drops by a factor of 4 with irradiation in the region of 313 nm relative to the quantum yield with irradiation in the region of 240 nm. At all wavelengths the mechanism is proposed to involve initial carbon-iodine bond homolysis (Rahn and Sellin (1982) Photochem. Photobiol. 35:459). Similarly, carbon-iodine bond homolysis is proposed to occur upon irradiation of 5-iodo-2'-deoxycytidine-substituted DNA at 313 nm (Rahn and Stafford (1979) Photochem. Photobiol. 30:449). Strictly monochromatic light was not used in any of these studies. Recently, a 5-iodouracil-substituted duplex DNA was shown to undergo a photochemical single strand break (Sugiyama et al. (1993) J. Am. Chem. Soc. 115:4443).
Also of importance with respect to the present invention is the observed direct population of the triplet states of 5-bromouracil and 5-iodouracil from irradiation of the respective S.sub.o .fwdarw.T absorption bands in the region of 350-400 nm (Rothman and Kearns (1967) supra).
Photophysical studies of the 4-thiouracil chromophore implicate the .pi.,.pi.* triplet state as the reactive state. The intersystem crossing quantum yield is unity or close to unity. Although photocrosslinking within 4-thiouracil-substituted nucleoprotein complexes has been observed, amino acid residues reactive with excited 4-thiouracil have not been established (Favre (1990) supra). The addition of the .alpha.-amino group of lysine to excited 4-thiouracil at the 6-position has been reported; however, this reaction is not expected to be important in photocrosslinking within nucleoprotein complexes because the .alpha.-amino group is involved in a peptide bond (Ito et al. (1980) Photochem. Photobiol. 32:683).
Photocrosslinking of azide-bearing nucleotides or nucleic acids to associated proteins is thought to proceed via formation of the singlet and/or triplet nitrene (Bayley and Knowles (1977) Methods Enzymol. 46:69; Czarnecki et al. (1979) Methods Enzymnol. 56:642; Hanna et al. (1993) Nucleic Acids Res. 21:2073). Covalent bond formation results from insertion of the nitrene in an O--H, N--H, S--H or C--H bond. Singlet nitrenes preferentially insert in heteroatom-H bonds and triplet nitrenes in C--H bonds. Singlet nitrenes can also rearrange to azirines which are prone to nucleophilic addition reactions. If a nucleophilic site of a protein is adjacent, crosslinking can also occur via this pathway. A potential problem with the use of an azide functional group results if it resides ortho to a ring nitrogen; the azide will exist in equilibrium with a tetrazole which is much less photoreactive.
The coat protein-RNA hairpin complex of the R17 bacteriophage is an ideal system for the study of nucleic acid-protein photocrosslinking because of the simplicity of the system in vitro. The system is well characterized, consisting of a viral coat protein that binds with high affinity to an RNA hairpin within the phage genome. In vivo the interaction of the coat protein with the RNA hairpin plays two roles during phage infection: the coat protein acts as a translational repressor of replicase synthesis (Eggen and Nathans (1969) J. Mol. Biol. 39:293), and the complex serves as a nucleation site for encapsidation (Ling et al. (1970) Virology 40:920; Beckett et al. (1988) J. Mol Biol. 204:939). Many variations of the wild-type hairpin sequence also bind to the coat protein with high affinity (Tuerk & Gold (1990) Science 249:505; Gott et al. (1991) Biochemistry 30:6290; Schneider et al. (1992) J. Mol. Biol. 228:862).
The selection of nucleic acid ligands according to the SELEX method may be accomplished in a variety of ways, such as on the basis of physical characteristics. Selection on the basis of physical characteristics may include physical structure, electrophoretic mobility, solubility, and partitioning behavior. U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/960,093, filed Oct. 14, 1992, entitled Method for Selecting Nucleic Acids on the Basis of Structure, herein specifically incorporated by reference, describes the selection of nucleic acid sequences on the basis of specific electrophoretic behavior. The SELEX technology may also be used in conjunction with other selection techniques, such as HPLC, column chromatography, chromatographic methods in general, solubility in a particular solvent, or partitioning between two phases.